KARACHI: The Jang Group and Geo Network are proud to announce that Dr Maleeha Lodhi has rejoined the organization as Special Adviser International Affairs. Dr Lodhi will lead efforts to establish new platforms for global discourse and enhance the Group’s global engagement and international profile. Dr Maleeha Lodhi brings extensive experience in diplomacy, media and teaching to this role. She is the Founding Editor of The News and she held the position for many years. Her diplomatic experience spans 11 years representing Pakistan twice as Ambassador to the US and more recently as High Commissioner to the UK. She also served as a member of the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament for six years. She was a Fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School in 2008 and until earlier this year a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. Dr Lodhi is a recipient of the Hilal-e-Imtiaz for Public Service, having also received several international honours for her diplomatic and academic work. She has just completed an edited book, Pakistan: Beyond the ‘Crisis State’ due to be published jointly by Hurst (London), Columbia University Press and OUP (Pakistan). Officials of Jang Group and Geo are extremely proud and excited to have Dr Lodhi as part of the senior editorial team. REFERENCE: Dr Maleeha Lodhi joins Jang Group, Geo Thursday, December 16, 2010 http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=2701&Cat=13 Thursday, December 16, 2010, Muharram 09, 1432 A.H http://www.jang.com.pk/jang/dec2010-daily/16-12-2010/main4.htm
| Augusta scam: SC opens case against Amir Lodhi |
Updated at: 1332 PST, Wednesday, March 31, 2010 ISLAMABAD: Supreme Court (SC) approved the appeal filed by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to restore the reference against Amir Lodhi, an accomplice in Augusta Submarine commission scam, Geo News reported Wednesday. The apex court bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Iftikhar Muhammed Chaudhry heard the NAB’s appeal regarding Augusta Submarine commission. It should e mentioned that the former Naval Chief Admiral Mansoor-ul-Haq was released by plea-bargaining. The apex court restored the reference against accused Amir Lodhi in Augusta Submarine commission scam and ordered Lahore High Court (LHC) to hear the case. http://www.geo.tv/3-31-2010/62086.htm |
Maleeha Lodhi with "Kamran Khan" - Part 1
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyqzj4gG1Oc
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Wednesday accepted an application of the National Accountability Bureau seeking restoration of an accountability reference against Amir Lodhi, a co-accused in the Augusta Submarine commission scam and a beneficiary of the National Reconciliation Ordinance. A seven-member larger bench of the apex court comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Mian Shakirullah Jan, Justice Chaudhry Ijaz Ahmed, Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani, Justice Tariq Parvez, Justice Asif Saeed Khosa and Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday ordered the Lahore High Court (LHC) to hear the case. The accountability court had already released former naval chief Admiral (r) Mansoorul Haq – the main accused in the Augusta Submarines deal scam in 1994 including other arms sales – by accepting his plea bargain after he offered to pay back $7.5 million. Lodhi was a defence contractor and a co-accused in an arms kickback deal in the Augusta Submarine contract. The post-1996 investigation into the deal led to Mansoor’s removal as the naval chief. Amir Lodhi is also the brother of former Pakistani ambassador Maliha Lodhi. An accountability court had issued a non-bailable warrant for Lodhi’s arrest, a co-accused in the case for receiving $1,739,282 as kickbacks from suppliers. According to the reference, Lodhi was instrumental in obtaining commissions and kickbacks. The commission was transferred through offshore companies that he established. REFERENCE: Supreme Court revives accountability cases against Amir Lodhi Thursday, April 01, 2010 http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\04\01\story_1-4-2010_pg7_34
Maleeha Lodhi with "Kamran Khan" - Part 2
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_mTG8By4fA&feature=channel
The reference accused the former naval chief of receiving $3,369,383 through transfer of money from M/s Titan Europe to M/s Foraker and then to M/s Moylegrove. Similarly, Amir Lodhi, brother of Pakistan's ambassador to the United States, received $1,739,282 allegedly from these illegal transactions. The reference accused that Amir Lodhi was instrumental in obtaining commissions and kickbacks in defence deals on his own as well as on Admiral Haq's behalf. Meanwhile, the same court directed the authorities to provide a copy of corruption reference against Chaudhry Mohammad Zaman, ex-deputy director, Agriculture Extension Rawalpindi. REFERENCE: Mansurul Haq's remand extended for 11 days Staff Reporter DAWN WIRE SERVICE Week Ending: 4 August 2001 Issue : 07/31 http://www.lib.virginia.edu/area-studies/SouthAsia/SAserials/Dawn/2001/aug0401.html#mans
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD42hLaapJ4&feature=channel
"Ijaz told us that in this way you will kill two birds with one stone, one we will ensure votes in the US House for the Brown Amendment and the other the company R.D.D.A. will not sue you", the spokesman added. The spokesman said that when Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi was given this proposal she saw it as a trap wherein Pakistan Government could land in bigger trouble; so she turned down Mr Mansoor Ijaz's proposal saying that "it was illegal". In the Wall Street Journal article, Mr Ijaz has implied that Ambassador Lodhi used "aggressive tactics" in pushing for F-16 monies after the passage of the Brown Amendment because her brother, Amir Lodhi, was interested in the Mirage deal with France as he was the middleman as alleged in the article. REFERENCE: Author was denied $15m, claims Shaikh Our Correspondent DAWN WIRE SERVICE Week Ending : 10 October 1996 Issue : 02/41 http://www.lib.virginia.edu/area-studies/SouthAsia/SAserials/Dawn/1996/10Oc96.html#auth
Maleeha Lodhi with "Kamran Khan" - Part 4
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TesQlS8QsH4&feature=channel
THE air of triumphalism attendant upon the extradition of Grand Admiral Mansurul Haq deserves to be kept in perspective. The Grand Admiral was an enterprising person. Of that there can be little question. What heights would he not have scaled in corporate finance? This is just one example, albeit a telling one, of how we mix priorities in Pakistan. The Grand Admiral should have been head of the State Bank or an investment corporation. And Amer Lodhi, reputedly the chief whip in the Agosta submarine deal, should have headed the navy. Since Pakistani lawyers are not famous for being choosy in these matters, it should come as no surprise to anyone if Amer Lodhi has been taken on by Mr S. M. Zafar as a client. On his behalf Mr Zafar, as eminent and expensive a lawyer as they come, has issued a plaintive statement disclaiming any Lodhi connection with arms procurement. The rewriting of memory is one of Pakistan's most thriving industries. Scams and disasters that would cause upheavals elsewhere scarcely cause a ripple on the calm surface of our national waters. That all responsibility is denied is understandable. But we go one step further and deny the very existence of the performances enacted, or the calamities staged.
Maleeha Lodhi with "Kamran Khan" - Part 5
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB1EaR3x3rM&feature=channel
Next to memory-fixing the most productive industry is the laundering of reputations. In this dry-cleaning business the dirtiest linen comes out clean. The National Accountability Bureau is nailing people for misdemeanours, small or breath-taking. Otherwise who is guilty in Pakistan? Not Benazir, Zardari, Nawaz Sharif, Saifur Rehman, Ukraine tank dealers, Agosta submarine commission agents, second-hand Mirage handlers, high-flying bankers, hospitality-purveying industrialists or entrepreneurs whose abilities would leave even fiction writers amazed. What's so surprising then if Mr S. M. Zafar claims innocence on behalf of Amer Lodhi, a gent whose enterprising abilities get a tell-tale reference in newspapers every now and then? Or take Amer Lodhi. He has friends in the US but as Mr S M Zafar informs us, he is a citizen of Monaco. You can't get any smarter than this. And here's one of our former navy chiefs, someone who might have been credited with greater sense, making a mistake any small-time crook would have avoided. REFERENCE: You don't shoot admirals, do you? Ayaz Amir DAWN WIRE SERVICE Week Ending : 26 May 2001 Issue: 07/ http://www.lib.virginia.edu/area-studies/SouthAsia/SAserials/Dawn/2001/may2601.html#youd
Maleeha Lodhi with "Kamran Khan" - Part 6
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSQl8OFWmQY&feature=channel
When the Agosta submarine deal in Benazir's second term was going through it was widely rumoured that vast sums in commissions were involved. I too wrote about the proposed deal and got a rupees five crore damages' notice from Mr Zardari's lawyer. Then I heard no more of it. Much later, the navy, after some ill-timed revelations, were sprung, hauled up a couple of officers for receiving bribes. They got short prison sentences. This was the only peep the nation got into the skullduggery of this affair. Who were the principal beneficiaries? What were the sums they made? Suspicions abound but the details are shrouded in mystery. Later just by the skin of its teeth Pakistan avoided a Mirage 2000 deal that would have broken the back of our defence budget. Things had indeed come to a pass where strategic or battlefield need was not determining the choice of weapons but rather the commissions to be made on them. In both the consummated submarine deal as well as the abortive Mirage deal the middleman was said to be one Amer Lodhi, whose dad was onetime head of Attock Oil Company. Once at a party I was witness to a scene where one guy was trying to beat up another, an arms agent, because of a quarrel over a sum of money. The fixer had apparently arranged an introduction with the then air chief, Abbas Khattak, for which favour the agent was supposed to pay him ten lakh rupees.
The agent paid an instalment but then withheld the rest of the amount because, he said, the deal he was pushing had not gone through. Ten lakhs for an introduction, not bad whichever way you look at it. No, for the connected life here is easy and comfortable. As for the unconnected, they do not matter. But could a tehelka expose be done here? Not on your life. For one, Pakistani journalists are too lazy, desk artists who do their stories without moving from their seats. The legwork required for investigative journalism is not part of the local style. For another, who would permit such an intrusion into the forbidding spires of national security? Years ago when the Frontier Post (since dead) came up with a front-page news item saying that for a trip abroad Begum Ziaul Haq was taking 40 pieces of baggage with her, there was commotion in the ISI and a Stalinist purge in the newspaper's ranks. Things have moved on but not so much that a general in the procurement division could be caught on film (as was the hapless General Ahluwalia) declaring his partiality for Blue Label Scotch. Is it my patriotism speaking or am I right in thinking that Pakistani procurement officers even in jest would not lose their heads over such a trifle? REFERENCE No tehelka please, we're Pakistanis Ayaz Amir DAWN WIRE SERVICE Week Ending : 24 March 2001 Issue : 07/12 http://www.lib.virginia.edu/area-studies/SouthAsia/SAserials/Dawn/2001/mar2401.html#note
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Amir and Maleeha Lodhi, Partners in Crime
NOTE: A British high court on Tuesday ordered two Pakistani ex-colleagues of Amir Lodhi, the brother of Pakistani 'Ambassador' to the U.S. Maleeha Lodhi, to pay $750 million dollars in the infamous BCCI massive corruption and big frauds case. Following are excerpts from the "Profile" of Maleeha Lodhi, 45, published in the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday, April 5, 1994, written by the Times Staff Writer John-Thor
Dahlburg:
"Amer [Lodhi], the older of her [Maleeha Lodhi's] two brothers, was a globe-trotting liaison for the infamous Bank of Credit and Commerce International, whose collapse caused losses to depositors in excess of $10 billion."
"Now trying to cut deals with Pakistan's government on behalf of defense firms such as the French maker of the Mirage warplane, the New York-based brother has become a friend and business partner of Benazir Bhutto's husband [Asif Ali Zardari who now lives in a jail in Pakistan]. He [Amer Lodhi] also turned informant for the Manhattan [New York] district attorney's office in its BCCI probe."
"Operator and wheeler-dealer are labels Pakistani observers frequently affix to this woman, sometimes in envy."
"Some critics in Pakistan accuse [Maleeha] Lodhi of using her newspapers [The News International and Jang] to promote certain business interests, including the government's purchase of Mirage warplanes. One Western correspondent swears he saw a [Benazir] Bhutto aide writing an article that appeared the next day in Lodhi's newspaper, The News, and bylined 'by our correspondent.'"
"...many [Pakistan] Foreign Office officials resent her as an outsider, and a woman to boot, vaulting over so many senior career diplomats."
"Maleeha Lodhi's credentials include an eye for power, a blue-blood
pedigree and a thousand-watt smile."
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UK COURT ISSUES JUDGEMENT AGAINST TWO BCCI DEBTORS
LONDON, UK, December 21, 1999 (Reuters): A British high court on Tuesday issued a $750 million civil judgement against two Pakistani businessmen relating to debts owed to the collapsed Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), the bank's liquidators said. The judgement was made against Mustafa and Murtaza Gokal, brothers of BCCI convicted fraudster Abbas Gokal, who is serving a 14-year prison sentence in Britain. Mustafa Gokal was a Minister in General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq Cabinet between 1977 and 1980.
The high court also established a worldwide injunction freezing the movement of any assets of the two brothers, who live in Pakistan. The three Gokal brothers ran the Gulf Group, a Pakistan-based shipping company, which was by far the largest debtor of the British-headquartered BCCI. In the final years before BCCI's collapse in 1991 as a result of massive fraud, Gulf was receiving over $1 million a day in loans from BCCI. The liquidators seized some $60 million of Gulf's assets when the debts were first uncovered.
"Deloitte & Touche, BCCI Liquidators, intend to pursue this judgement vigorusly," the liquidators said in a statement. BCCI creditors are fighting a string of cases to recover more than $10 billion of funds lost when the bank collapsed. So far nearly $5 billion or 46 percent of the bank's losses have been returned to creditors in two dividend payments. A third dividend of $1 billion is plannedfor this spring, a spokesman for the liquidators said.
The liquidators have appealed their failed 500 million pounds-plus ($804 million) negligence claim against the Bank of England over its granting of BBCI's licence. An appeal hearing at the House of Lords will take place in mid-January. [Copyright Reuters Limited 1999] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pakgovnetwork/message/4222
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